May 16th Coordination Meeting
Summary
By Luis Almodovar
On Friday, 16 May, the Coordination Meeting by the State
Tourism Office, State Environment Office, the Tourism
Developers Association of San Felipe and the Tourism
Sector in San Felipe started just as scheduled. The
initial welcome presentation was held by the state secretary
of tourism, Oscar Escobedo Carignan. Right after, Ing
Armando Arevalo president of the Tourism Developers
Association gave an introductory speech. Next the assistants
listened to a preliminary message by the state secretary
for the Environment Socrates Bastida Hernandez.
The dynamic of the meeting was very flexible and allowed
a dialog format, in which every party was expected to
participate. The event that initially was planned to
end by 11:30 am finished roughly after 2:00 pm due to
the enormous amount of interaction and information among
the attendants.
After Secretary for the Environment gave his introductory
speech, in which he publicly announced the importance
of the [soon to come] "Vaquita Marina Conservation
Campain" which according to his words, "will
center San Felipe in the eyes of the world"
and this mandates the urgent deployment of certain tasks.
After the first question was made by the iisfac representative
regarding the possibility of controlling the amazing
polution problem that affects all beaches and confines
of San Felipe region, the Secretary for the Environment
clearly stated that a plan for getting San Felipe beaches
certified by a program called Concepto de Playa Limpia
- Clean Beach Concept - is underway. He also made quite
an important statement regarding the conceptualization
of the type of development foresight for San Felipe,
which is called by this agency: The San Felipe Ecologically
Friendly Concept.
Ing. Armando Ramos supported iisfac interest on the
current state of SF beaches by stating this is one priority
issue that goes hand in hand with heavy uncontrolled
vehicle traffic in the SF sands. Ing. Armando Ramos
also suggested the implementation of a Wrist campaign
to get funds to reinforce the "Vaquita Marina Conservation
Campaign". Hazael Sierra, delegado for San Felipe,
informed the assistants about the date for an initial
meeting concerning the Concepto de Playa Limpia certification,
in a joint effort held by a designated committee called
Comite de Playas Limpias, on 23 May. He made reference
to confirmed economic resources being made available
right after the Mexicali government signs an agreement
wich will allow its commencement on the first days of
June. These actions will include beach surveillance.
The Counter Admiral for the San Felipe Navy Port Station
informed the assistants about current levels of contamination
rising dramatically due to local sewer disposals coming
from establishments adjacent to the local beaches. He
announced that the Navy has already detected 3 mayor
points of infection and will start taking action against
those responsible for the illegal and irresponsible
waste. He explained that imposing fines on people is
not a final solution and he believes in a strategy that
involves educationand prevention programs to eliminate
the causes, accompanied by the application of the law.
Ing Armando Ramos requested a meeting between the Mexicali
Mayor and the developers to keep working on this sensitive
issue.
A municipal government Regidor attending the meeting,
mentioned that their point of view was to avoid creating
complicated rules and it would be better to direct most
efforts into making people and businesses aware and
active about the problem.
Throughout the meeting both secretary for the Envoronment
and secretary of Tourism invited the community to look
after their natural resources and to realize the region's
enormous ecologic tourism potential. They invited the
assistants to be creative and to unite in order to generate
very concrete alternatives and diversify their touristic
services, especially now that the "Vaquita Marina
Conservation campaign" is in it's imminent deployment
and will be accompanied by a complete strategy directed
at converting and changing most of the old fishing ways.
This in direct reference to the local fisherman. The
federal government is already creating funds that will
encourage local commercial fisherman who now in the
"protected vaquita marina zone" to switch
their activities to a nondestructive profile.
Local school professor Enrique Meza requested the
government representatives should prevent the closure
of public beaches, since from his point of view the
access to beaches is being either denied or charged
throughout the San Felipe - Puertecitos corridor. To
this the delegado for San Felipe, Hazael Sierra, responded
that there are six public access to beaches that are
currently being prepared, two of them already have been
cleaned and opened [one between Club de Pesca and Campo
Victor and one right next to the Habana Club]. Soon
there will be an official announcement regarding the
location of these six accesses to promote their use.
Ing Armando Ramos open a new order of ideas when he
informed the audience about the seriousness of current
problems with zona federal land limits. He commented
about many irregularities and made clear that every
project involving beach access has to be aware of the
possibility of loosing their right to the federal zone
within their property. He stated the importance of not
having unfair actions between groups of the same sector.
A representative for Semarnat, a federal agency for
the environment, informed that every citizen in Mexico
is entitled to request a concession for federal zone.
The owners of property adjacent to federal zones have
priority over that land but if they don't claim it with
a concession any one else being a Mexican citizen can
and the government will actually grant the concession.
Finally, the secretary of tourism had a chance to
start his main statement of the day: it is a fact that
the local airport will be renewed after a 25 day period
in which the project will be put out for contest. After
the government assigns the job the contractor will have
120 to finish all details of the procces. The secretary
confirmed this action will make a first class airport
for SF and total investment will be 12 million pesos.
The next logical step will be having regular flights
into the region.
Ing Armando Ramos mentioned that the 4 lane highway
will be completed by 2011 and explained the project
cannot be downgraded due to the fact that SF is the
first step of the escalera nautica project and the four
lane highway is required for the heavy transportation
needs that keep the continuation of the highway safe
until its completion in 2011.
The secretary of tourism made sure the audience understood
the importance of the signature by BC, Sonora, BC sur
and Sinaloa, of the "Mar de Cortez: Acuario del
Mundo" project in which the BC government will
invest 600 thousand pesos within the next 6 months in
an effort to bring order in the region.
The secretary of tourism responded when someone asked
how to respond to the negative publicity campaigns coming
from San Diego and other California and Arizona cities:
"The state government is investing 2 million
dollars to promote the state and counteract the negative
effect of such attacks by creating a campaign in which
BC cities ' level of violence is compared to that of
major cities in the United States. By comparison, a
tourist is much more exposed to a possible harmful situation
in California than in Baja California", he
stated as an example.
The secretary let the assistants know the Green angels
now have new vehicles and they are active in all state
main highways ready to assist, also the emergency number
060 has been linked to 911, so now tourists can dial
911 and will get immediate attention.
The secretary of tourism made clear that San Felipe
itself has to handle it's own issues and has to come
up with an strategy which then will be supported by
the state government. Ing Armando Ramos explained that
there is a need to recognize that SF is very fluent
in real state activities and those should also participate
on the creation of the fideicomiso funds, and not only
expect to have resources via hotel occupation. He believes
since the amount of money is so little, the fideicomiso
can not break this trend of having 45% recourses destined
forpayroll and administrative expenses. The secretary
of tourism suggested 85% of the fideicomiso money should
be put to work for SF.
The possible date for next meeting is 15 June. Secretary
of tourism confirmed he will attend.